RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike Review

A while back, I got a chance to check out the demo for RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike and write a preview for the game. There were a few issues with the title, like coins clipping into the pusher so that they didn’t move the way that they should; I was curious to see if these issues would be addressed for the full release of the game.

The first thing you do before you start playing is set your preferred pixel size from Super Low, where you barely see any pixels, all the way up to Super High, where the whole outline is covered. I found that having it turned down made the animations run more smoothly than when it is on the high setting. This is available to change at any time you want. 

On the main menu, you can view your profile and see your best round score, how many wins you have, along with how many different coins, modifiers, bad coins, chips, prizes, and keychains are in your collection, along with the number of milestones out of the 28 you have unlocked in your time playing. 

When you begin to play, Robin, the Owner, teaches you everything you need to know about the coin pusher machine. You select the cabinet that you want to play on, which is made of cardboard and scrap parts. But as you play, you will unlock new machines to play.  

The basics of RACCOIN: Coin Pusher are very easy to learn. If you have ever played one of these coin games in the arcade, you know what you are doing. You have 20 Copper Coins that you place in the left or right chute on the sides of the machine. Insert it in the left chute and it will slide across to the right, and the right will go over to the left, as long as it doesn’t hit another coin in its path. The owner gives you a useful tip and says that if you shoot from both at the same time, the coins will collide in the middle and will start a pile that can be pushed off the top section. 

The coins will fall off the top shelf and be pushed, moving all the other coins that they touch. Ultimately, we want the coins on the edge to fall off the platform into the Scoring Zone. This is how you receive points and tickets that you can spend at the shop to collect new coins and items. When a coin falls, your score is calculated by multiplying its value by the score rate. This multiplier can be changed by the different items that you purchase in the shop, so this is where strategy really comes into play, as a few good choices can have a huge impact on your score.  

To clear the round and move on to the next, you need to get enough points to reach the Target Score. If you run out of coins and items to use before obtaining it, your run will be over, and you need to begin from the start again. However, if successful, you head to the shop to purchase Collector’s Coins that are worth more points than the standard Copper Coin and may have unique effects, like the Boom Coin. This one explodes, moving all the pieces around it, or the Killer Coin, which is shaped like a raccoon and kills the “bad coins” in the machine. 

These evil coins prevent you from exchanging your tickets for additional coins, which sucks when you need to drop a couple more pieces to push others into the Scoring Zone.

Coins aren’t the only thing you will spend your tickets on. You can pick up Prizes and Chips that give you added bonuses, like the Ticket Whip that gives you a 40% chance of getting an extra ticket when coins are scored, or Money Bag that increases the amount of coins you have in your hand at the start of the round. You start with 20, this adds an additional eight. The chips are equipped on the Slot Card, you can only hold a few, but they can be sold at any point if you find a better one in the shop. 

Once you drop all of your coins, it becomes a waiting game. You just sit there watching the pusher, hoping that somehow it can nudge the coins just a little further. It’s amazing how much suspense there is when you are just sitting and waiting; the anticipation is intense!

If you run out of items and tickets to spend on additional coins, the game asks if you want to shake the table, causing the coins to move around, hopefully knocking enough into the Scoring Area to complete that round. If not, you go back to the menu to start over again.

Each run lasts for 15 rounds, with each one requiring a higher score than the last to complete. Round one is only 35, but by the time you get to round seven, you need 4,000 and the last round requires a score of 750,000. It took me a lot of tries to successfully complete a full run; the coins and items that you purchase make a huge difference to your score. The better the multiplier, the faster you will get the amount of points required.

The more you consistently make coins fall into the Scoring Area, the higher your combo will be, triggering a wheel to spin, causing coins and items to fall, or even coin towers that can climb up the height of the screen. It’s so fun to see it growing and eventually get knocked down from being pushed by the machine, or by a special item you use on it.

RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike looks great. There are so many fun coins to purchase with great powers and cool designs. I wanted to try all of them out to find the ones that I liked the best. The exploding coins were fun to see them detonate and send everything around them flying, or the UFO item that uses a tractor beam to suck coins up from the platform. 

The music was pretty repetitive, but it wasn’t annoying, so I didn’t mind hearing it over and over again. My favourite part is the sound effects that you hear when the coins fall and hit each other. It is incredibly realistic and makes it feel like I’m playing on a machine in real life.

I have had a great time playing RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike. All the issues I had when I played the demo are fixed up, making this game an incredibly addictive title that has a variety of characters to unlock, along with machines, coins, and other items for your playthrough. This is a challenging title full of strategy that keeps pulling me in for one more try to beat my previous highscore and unlock more items for my next run.